Part One: Goodness
Part Two: Knowledge
Part Three: Self-Control
Part Four: Perseverance
Part Five: Godliness
2 Peter 1:5-8
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
While we begin the maturity process by realizing there is more to life than ourselves, it takes a little while to put that into practice. But now, in the end of the process, we are back around to specifically focusing on others again.
Brotherly kindness, the Greek word is philadelphia, is literally treating others as they are family. We extend the kindness to others that we would extend to family.
Another way of saying this might be: we extend our family.
I see the tennis team, throughout the years that I've been coaching especially, as one large brotherhood. You are all my little brothers. I want to see you succeed in tennis, my heart rises and sinks with your matches as it did when I watched my own brother compete. And I care about more than just tennis in your lives as well. I want to spare you from the heartbreak of bad decisions, support you through your worst times, and celebrate graduation with you. But I'll continue to follow your future success in college, whether playing tennis or not. I love to make contact with players I used to coach: Colin Yoder, Jordan Kauffman, Daniel Buschert, and others.
I hope that you will have this family attitude for those who have come before you, who will play with you, and who will play after you. I hope this year's seniors reach out to their little brothers, this year's freshman.
Tennis brings us together, but we will be a family. We will look over each other with kindness and concern. We will be brothers.